Taliban officials in the newly opened Taliban office in Qatar say the opening of their office is a response to calls by their opponents for the launch of a political process to end three decades of fighting in Afghanistan. In an interview with RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem explained the hard-line movement's motives and aspirations behind the opening of their contact office in the Qatari capital, Doha.
It is almost a year since the first reports surfaced that some Chechens, together with fighters from elsewhere in the Russian Federation, had joined the ranks of the armed opposition to Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. While their numbers remain unclear, it seems that by no means all of them traveled to Syria directly from Chechnya.
Iranians elected a new president last week but have yet to learn anything about his wife. President-elect Hassan Rohani has never mentioned her name in public, and Iranian media have failed to uncover her identity.
